Hi,

I need help. I got this new hibiscus pot and it has got three plants clumped together in one pot. One variety has green stems (above the woody shoot) and the other has brown stems (above the woody shoot).

The plant with the green stems has lots of buds and blooms well, each bud blooms and falls off after a day. The calyx falls off the next day (so none has successfully gone to seed -probably due to heat and low humidity). Now the plant with the brown stem which also has red colored flowers but it has never bloomed. The buds are different from the plant with the green stem and some questions I have:

1. Are these two different varieties, can anyone identify them?

2. Is one of the plants (brown stems particularly) suffering from any disease which is causing the buds to drop before flowering? Could it be ants or thrips or any other unidentified problem? low sunlight?

3. What is the best way to rid the plant of ants? and thrips (if that is the problem).

I have tried watering them heavily, lightly, I mist them once or twice in a day yet only the plant with the green stems blooms. I've even added plant food kept the plant in different positions to receive different levels of sunlight yet only one plant seems to be blooming and the other two (brown stem) has buds which fall off without flowering.

The pictures attached here (and in comments) give more details.